Name: Unknown Age: 450 Race: Demon Physical Condition: Weakened (stats decreasing — 40%↓) Grip Strength: 76 kg Mana: 690 Special Item: Scales of Submission There was no question about it.
The golden scales lying on the ground, the absurd mana reading — the name field might have shown “Unknown,” but Lara knew exactly who this demon was: Aura.
She was already well past the point of treating this world’s information as a mystery.
And Aura was one of the top-tier combatants in this world — not remotely the kind of creature the current her had any business facing.
What was this, if not running into the final boss right outside the starter village?
Good thing she’d prepared in advance.
While the light was still blinding those demon eyes, time to yoyo right out of here.
Lara gave herself a mental pat on the back for her foresight, fully intending to leave and never come back — but as always, things refused to go according to plan.
Before she could even turn around, Aura had already lifted the Scales of Submission up from the ground.
The blinding radiance hadn’t stopped Aura’s movements at all.
Even blind, she could still cast magic just fine.
Lara found herself teetering on the edge of the cliff once again.
In front of her stood a demon who had lived for over four hundred years, and with the Submission magic in play, running was off the table — turning her back meant death.
Which left exactly one option.
Lara lunged straight at Aura, grabbed the Scales of Submission with both hands, and drove her foot as hard as she could directly into the demon’s face.
Grip strength 223 versus 76 — the advantage was hers.
“Nani?” Aura had not anticipated this.
A human whose mana was barely a trickle, who had done nothing but flash a light at her upon their meeting — and yet that human possessed such naturally monstrous physical ability.
A left front kick sent her head spinning, and while she was still reeling from the pain, the scales were wrenched from her grasp.
What followed was a blunt impact to the skull that stripped her of all control over her own body, and she collapsed, powerless, into the water.
Aura sank into the lake and went still.
The only evidence of what had happened here was the shimmering ripples on the surface and the bloodstains on the scales.
Lara had no idea whether Aura was dead, or whether Aura had any other magic besides Submission.
She wasn’t about to gamble on it — she bolted into the forest, wiping the blood from the scales with leaves as she ran, hoping to eliminate the scent trail before Aura could use it to follow her.
“83, identify this thing!” The words had barely left her mouth when a panel appeared.
Scales of Submission Can be used to cast Submission magic.
The user shares a faint connection with the scales.
“Master, I recommend you abandon the scales immediately.
That demon can most likely track them.” “Damn it — so I went through all that danger and got nothing out of it?” Lara stared at the scales in her hand.
Pure gold.
Even if she couldn’t use the Submission magic, selling them would probably be enough to live out the rest of her days in comfort in this world.
The very thought of throwing them away made her heart bleed.
“No, no, no, Master — stop wiping them.
You should lick the scales clean instead.
By ingesting biological information from other creatures, you can grow stronger.” ?
“What do you mean?
So I can use Metamorphosis to become Aura?” “No — there isn’t nearly enough information for a full transformation.
But you can absorb a portion of Aura’s mana.
Roughly one percent.” Even a mosquito has meat on it — better than nothing.
Lara licked the scales clean at the speed of light, then tossed them aside.
She doubled back on her route and headed east.
A moment later, a tremendous boom rang out from the direction of the lake.
Localized rain began falling from the sky, and birds and beasts scattered in every direction.
Aura dragged herself out of the lake, coughing without stop, eyes sweeping her surroundings.
The moment she realized the scales were gone, she shut her eyes and used her connection to the scales to pinpoint their direction, then gave chase.
Beasts drawn by the scent of blood kept lunging from the undergrowth, but none of them got anywhere near Aura before being smashed into the trees by a burst of her mana.
By the time she found the scales, the human had vanished without a trace.
“Wretched human.
Don’t let me lay eyes on you again — or you’ll regret it.” Low damage, maximum humiliation.
The last time Aura had been this wretched was during her battle with the Hero’s party, when the Hero had rushed her point-blank and broken her concentration, and before she could react, Frieren had sent her scales flying.
History had repeated itself, and it was a memory Aura would carry for the rest of her life.
That night, the moon hung high in a cloudless sky.
On the ground below, trees grew dense and tangled, and a young girl moved swiftly through them.
After absorbing Aura’s blood, Lara’s mana had risen by 7 points, bringing it to 9 — an increase of over 300%.
Not that she could feel the difference, given that she had absolutely no idea how to use mana.
As a bonus, she had learned the Submission magic, though without the Scales of Submission, she had no way to actually cast it.
She had been running at full speed ever since the encounter with Aura.
The mountain range that had loomed in the east now felt almost within reach.
The moon gradually sank, the trees began to thin, and before she even spotted a river, she could already hear the sound of running water.
Moving water!
Which meant that if she followed it, she was bound to find people or a village eventually.
Find a human settlement, and the whole wide world would open up before her.
By that point, she could probably rake in a fortune just by running identifications with 0083.
A bright white tomorrow was waiting for her!
A smile spread across Lara’s face.
She was so close to the good life now.
From what she remembered, in Frieren’s world, as long as you stayed within the Central Nations, you could live a stable and comfortable life — it was quite a peaceful world, all things considered.
She followed the river northward.
The sun slowly woke.
A fishing boat came drifting into view over the horizon, rocking gently on the green waves.
A wave of salvation welled up in Lara’s heart.
Finally.
No more running.
Lara felt like bursting into tears.
The past two days had been too much — what should have been an ordinary walk home from work had spiraled into this through pure, sudden misfortune.
She’d been shoved from one crisis to the next with no idea what she was doing, and right now all she wanted was a decent rest.
“Hey!
Can you hear me?
Hey!” Six in the morning — prime fishing hours.
The fisherman uncle had been about to cast his net when he heard a voice from the riverbank not far away.
He looked over to find a strangely dressed little girl, jogging along in the wilderness at the crack of dawn, out here near the southernmost edge of the continent — a few hundred miles south of the nearest port city.
Hmm… after a brief moment of thought, the uncle arrived at a conclusion: this was a demon.
He hurriedly stowed his net, raised the sail, and began speeding away from the area.
The “demon” in question began frantically waving both arms.
“Hey!
Don’t go, mister, don’t leave!!
I’m not dangerous!
Save me!
There’s a demon out here!
Just help me a little!!” Lara was desperate.
She was in the middle of nowhere, she’d been running for a full day and night, she hadn’t eaten a single thing, and the first glimmer of hope she’d seen was now sailing away.
She couldn’t let it go.
But her stamina was giving out.
She watched the fishing boat grow smaller in the distance, and a wave of grief mixed with exhaustion washed over her.
Her vision went black, she lost all control of her body, and she toppled face-first into the river.
The fisherman watched Lara pitch headfirst into the water.
All he could see was a smear of blue-and-white floating on the surface — her school uniform.
No magic, no struggling — just like a corpse.
“Oh hell.
That might actually be a real person.” So the uncle hurriedly lowered the sail again, brought the boat to the bank, grabbed his fishing net, and at the moment Lara was about to drift past the hull, threw the net out and hauled her on board.
When Lara opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was a ceiling made of wooden beams.
“An unfamiliar ceiling.” Oh, oh, oh, oh — that was the line every single isekai protagonist had always wanted to say at least once!
Lara sat up in the bed with a perfectly composed expression, swallowing down her excitement to keep it from showing — the last thing she needed was for someone to think she’d lost her mind.
“You’re awake?” A young girl stepped in through the doorway.
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